Saturday, March 5, 2011

March Mileage Madness

Since December is too long to wait until another trail runner event, on March 19 we will be hosting a spring long run/race/social outing/adventure. The start and finish will be at my house on Platte Dr. where we have dinner after the Thursday night Pineridge runs. There will be two course options. Both routes take you up 38E and around the reservoir in a clockwise direction. The shorter option runs along the valley trails in HT and Lory and then back via Reservoir Ridge, Maxwell and Pineridge and totals about 23 miles (7 on roads and 16 on trail) with a few moderate climbs. The other option, Pete's route, goes to the top of both rocks and totals close to 35 miles with quite a bit of vertical. There will be multiple start times on Saturday morning so that we can all finish close together in the early afternoon for food, BBQ, drinks, stories and maybe some awards.

We will plan on having start times at 7:00 am, 8:00 am and 9:00 am with the goal being to finish between 12:00 and 2:00 for BBQ, beer and potluck. The short course is all very runnable with some good hills on the road in the first few miles and a good climb on the Foothills trail west of the dam. I plan to run it in around 3:30, so I am going to go with the 9:00 am start. I think I'll try to go out and run it this weekend and then I can post exact mileage, elevation gain and a course profile.

The long course has all the climbs of the short course plus the big climbs to the top of Horsetooth Rock and Aurthur's Rock. This will add another 3000+ feet to the day. Pete and I ran this route at a casual pace last spring and I think it took us around 7 hours.

There are multiple places to fill water and even some bathrooms along the way. I don't know if we'll be able to set up any aid stations, so you'll need to plan on carrying all your food and gear.

Plan on bringing food or drinks to share for after the run. If the weather is good, we'll BBQ outside. You can put stuff in the fridge before the run. We'll set up the start and finish line in the driveway.

Send me an email or post a comment if you have any questions. Lets hope the good weather holds out for us and it should be a great day.

Click on the image below for a map of the 23 mile course. You can zoom in to get trail detail.

Wow! That sounds like a challenge to me! I was considering the "short" route, but don't want to be labeled a "roadie that can't handle the rigors of the trail".Can I start at 5am so I'm not DFL again? :)

i can't believe what I am hearing about roads being the preference. just when you talk me into more trails and that roads are over rated you take back to the roads. Make up your minds! What time are people doing 23 starting?

Sarah, those comments were from a year ago when Kyle and Scott were preparing for road marathons out east. They have since come to their senses and realized that trail 100s is where it is really at. I think I'll run the 23 and start at 9:00 like we did last year. Can you bring the BBQ expert again to cook for us after the run?